


Meet Me at the Witching Hour

by Lobo_Loca



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, Gen, Halloween, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Magic, Misunderstandings, No underage shenanigans, Pre-Slash, Present Tense, Recovery, Samhain, Spirit!Jack (even though he's not actually dead), Unbeta'd, Witch!Bitty, implied accidental suicide (even though he's not actually dead), implied character death (even though he's not actually dead), mentioned Homophobia, some internalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-04-29 08:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5120936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobo_Loca/pseuds/Lobo_Loca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric Bittle sneaks out to the local cemetery with a basket of pie and spell ingredients, determined to share Samhain with some other lost and lonely spirit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

# October 31, 2008

Eric knows he shouldn’t be out this late. Mama is going to kill him if she finds out he snuck out of the house, especially after last year’s incident with the football team and the utility closet. She’s going to kill him a second time if she finds out Eric’s been in her books again. She’s going to kill him a third time if she finds out he’s doing witchcraft unsupervised _and_ dabbling in the grey areas of necromancy.

At this point, Eric is more afraid of the county sheriff because he’d drag Eric back home to his mother rather than because he’d label Eric a troublemaker and potentially out him as a witch.

The woods surrounding the cemetery are dark, and Eric scares off most of the squirrels who haven’t hunkered down for winter and at least two raccoons trudging through with his flashlight. As predicted, the cemetery gates are open. Eric can faintly make out a pair of high schoolers necking next to the fence towards empty section of grass at the back. Eric drags his flashlight over the bars of the gate a few times, adding some shrieking at the end just to be sure, then ducks behind a headstone as the high schoolers sprint out of the cemetery, the boy mostly dragging the girl.

Eric waits until they’re in the trees before he creeps out from behind the headstone and heads for the bare patch of grass.

The cemetery is the best place to find lonely and lost spirits, but Eric is not about to actually zombify some poor soul on accident. De-zombifying would definitely require help from his mother and the rest of the baking club.

Eric takes off his messenger bag, sets down the basket of pies, and leans his bag up against a nearby headstone as he digs out a ball of salt soaked twine and five little wooden stakes. He makes the star of the pentagram first, point facing north, and then makes a circle around it. Cutting the twine with his pocket knife, Eric pricks his finger. He bites back a swear, tying the circle closed. There’s a dark spot of blood on the twine and Eric hopes it won’t interfere with the spell.

He sets out four homemade tea-light candles: green facing north, yellow facing east, red facing south, and blue facing west. He puts a chip of amber to the left of the green candle, a small piece of hematite to the right, and a large chunk of clear quartz and a small chip of rose quartz behind. Eric digs two incense sticks, one lavender and the other sage, and a small glass jar out of his bag. He sets the jar just to the right of the yellow candle before plopping the incense into it. Rummaging through his bag, he finds his matches and lights the incense, shaking out the flame so it just smokes. His little clay bowl goes just left of the blue candle with a couple squirts of saltwater from his water bottle.

Eric surveys his pentagram for a long moment before he remembers he needs to set a ward. He finds the bell he stashed in his bag and cuts about six inches of twine. He jogs back to the cemetery gate and closes it, running the twine through the bars of the gate and the fence and tying the bell there with a muttered, “Signum tutela.”

The bell rings quietly.

Eric jogs back to his pentagram, mentally checking off each component. He really should have a bowl of salt between the quartz crystals, but he hadn’t been able to grab any salt after making the saltwater since his mother practically lived in their kitchen if she wasn’t at book club, baking club, or church.

The pentagram is as complete as it’s gonna get so Eric gets the little clay doll out of his bag. He rinses it with saltwater, shaking off the excessive. The twine wrapped around its arms, torso, and legs is a little damp, and there’s a stubborn drop of water clinging to one of the turquoise eyes, but Eric thinks it’s been purified enough. He sets it gently in the center of the pentagram and checks his watch.

It’s two minutes ‘til midnight.

Eric lights the candles and grabs his wand, little more than a rowan twig really. He aims it at the clay doll and starts the spell: “I call thee, the desolate and the lost, wanderer of an unwelcoming demiplane.”

The wind picks up, tugging at Eric’s coat and bringing snatches of words and whispers as it batters the tiny flames of the candles. The flames dim for a moment, but remain strong.

Eric continues, “Rest your weary spirit in this earthen body and share in my bounty so that your soul may be unburdened and shepherded to your rightful plane.”

His basket of pies rattle and the clay doll rocks. For a moment, Eric thinks the spell worked, but then the wind dies abruptly and the basket of pies and the clay doll go still.

He sighs, but he’s honestly not that surprised. This is fairly advanced magic and Eric’s only thirteen and (almost) a half.

He puts his wand away and turns to break the circle around the pentagram, only to come face to face to a tall, dark-haired man in the center of the pentagram, turquoise colored eyes wide and confused.

“Goodness gracious!” Eric exclaims scrabbling back until he hits a headstone. “I didn’t think it worked.”

“Where am I? Who are you?” the man asked, some accent coloring his voice as he turned to take in the pentagram and the cemetery.

Eric’s never actually talked to a ghost before, even if they (he?) are inhabiting a temporary body. “Well, you’re in Lawrenceville, Georgia. I’m—” Eric has half a thought to give the ghost his real name, but the ghost might be able to use that against him so he finishes with, “Dick,” instead. He’s been conditioned to respond to Dicky for years, so Dick shouldn’t be that hard in a pinch.

The ghost frowns, staring down at themselves. “How did I get here? I was—” They shake their head, probably trying to clear it. “I was in Montreal. It was…” The ghost trails off, anxiety darkening their face and shaking their hands before it clears, leaving a sardonic twist to their lips and a good deal of shame. “I took too much. The stress was just so overwhelming and Kenny wasn’t picking up and I’d been drinking and I took too much. _Tarbarnac_.”

Eric isn’t quite sure what to do at this point so he quickly blows out the candles and then breaks the circles, untying and unwinding the twine. The ghost seems more upset than angry so, after Eric tosses the twine and stakes back into his bag, he opens the basket of pies and takes out the apple pie and a fork.

“Pie?” Erik asks, holding out the tin and the fork.

The ghost stares at him, frowning as they reply uncertainly, “Can I even eat pie?”

“Well, I don’t see why not. You’ve got a body, at least for the moment. It’s supposed to last up to twelve hours.”

The ghost nods slowly, murmuring, “Right.” Louder, they ask, “Are you some kind of necromancer?”

“Witch,” Eric corrects.

“Right,” the ghost repeats before taking a bite of pie. Their eyes close as they make a satisfied hum. “I’m not sure if it’s because I’m dead or because I don’t eat a lot of pie, but I think this might be the best pie I’ve ever tasted.”

Eric blushes. “Why, thank you. My Moo Maw’s apple pie recipe has won my family several blue ribbons at the county fairs.”

“I can imagine. If I was alive, I might consider deviating from my nutrition plan for more of this pie.”

Eric grins and scootches over before patting the ground next to him. “Why don’t you come sit down and enjoy that pie.”

The ghost hesitates for a moment before walking over to join Eric against the headstone. Eric beams and asks, “Now what was that about a nutrition plan?”

The ghost freezes with a forkful of pie in the air. They slowly lower the fork, replying, “I’m, um, really into hockey.”

“I’ve never actually played,” Eric tells them, “but I’ve watched the co-ed team sometimes while I wait for my mama to pick me up from figure skating practice. Are you any good?”

The ghost shrugs. “I guess. I’m not as good as my dad. Or wasn’t anyway. Doesn’t really matter now.” After a pause, the ghost adds, “I’m Jack by the way.”

“Well, Jack, I haven’t seen either you or your dad play, so I can’t say anything one way or another. But if you were only playing to see who was better, why were you playing at all?”

Jack turns and stares at Eric. “What?”

“Why play hockey if all you’re doing is competing against your dad? You shouldn’t do something just because someone expects you to. You should do it because you enjoy it.” Eric digs a blueberry mini-pie and another fork out of the basket. He pokes at the pie as he continues, “I tried playing football for my dad—he coaches high school football. It—didn’t end well, and I know I disappointed him, which I’ll probably have to deal with for the rest of my life, but it’s not. It’s not the end of the world. I’m still his son even if I’m never going to be the high school quarterback. I’m sure your dad felt the same way.”

“Maybe,” Jack mumbles into his pie.

They eat in silence for several moments, just staring out into the dark before Eric asks, “So what kind of music do you like?”

Jack pauses, mouth full of pile. He finishes chewing, swallows, and says, “You can’t judge.”

Eric rolls his eyes and waves him on.

“I like country. The older stuff like Kenny Rogers and Marty Robbins.”

Eric takes a moment to digest that. “You mentioned Montreal—I’m assuming that’s the Quebec Montreal—how in Sam Hill did you get into Marty Robbins and Kenny Rogers?”

“What do you listen to then, eh?” Jack shoots back in a blatant attempt to change the subject away from his music tastes.

Eric allows it. “Beyoncé, Gwen Stefani, and most recently Lady Gaga.”

“I…have no idea who any of those are.”

Eric stares at Jack.

Jack looks away and rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t listen to the radio or pop music, okay?”

“No, Jack, this is not okay,” Eric retorts as he opens his bag and rummages around for his mp3 player and earbuds. He finds them and quickly navigates to the menu, pulling up “Irreplaceable” and handing Jack the right earbud accompanied by a stern look.

Jack rolls his eyes, but gamely puts in the earbud as Eric hits play.

They listen to Eric’s entire music collection while demolishing the pies Eric brought and Jack crows in triumphant when he finds a cache of Dolly Parton, Tanya Tucker, and LeAnn Rimes tucked away in some forgotten corner of the mp3 player. Eric shoves a mini-pie into his mouth and doesn’t feel more than the tiniest twinge of guilt when Jack chokes while laughing.

Jack seems thoughtful as he stops choking and asks, “What day is it anyway?”

“Samhain,” Eric says after a moment. He’d forgotten Jack was a ghost for a while. At Jack’s blank look, Eric elaborates, “Or, well, technically November 1st since we passed midnight some time ago.”

Jack nods. “Five months then, give or take a few days.”

At a loss, Eric nods. He debates whether or not to ask for a few moments before, blurting out, “How old were you?”

“Seventeen. I would’ve been eighteen in August.”

“That’s…” Eric trails off, trying to think of a way to end that sentence that isn’t _younger than I would’ve guessed_ or _really frickin’ sad_. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you when you were alive. You seem like a great guy.”

Jack laughs. “I’m sure there’s plenty of people who would disagree, but thanks, Dick.”

The very edges of the horizon are starting to brighten and Jack stands, staring off into the distance. He’s starting to turn translucent around the edges. He turns to give Eric one last smile before he says, “It was nice talking to someone who didn’t think they already knew all the answers,” before he vanishes, leaving the clay doll with turquoise chips for eyes behind.

Eric hugs his knees and whispers, “Bye, Jack.”

He feels even lonelier than before, but there’s also a sense of triumph that he helped Jack move on from lingering halfway between this plane and the next.

Eric cleans up his wayward ritual components, dispells the ward, and hurries home. He has twenty minutes before sunrise and hopefully he'll make it back before Mama gets up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had someone ask if I was planning on having Bitty and Jack get together before Bitty gets to college and I answered in the comments, but I know not everyone reads the comments so I'm going to restate my answer here:
> 
> Nothing is going to happen between Jack and Bitty while Bitty's underage. Bitty might get a crush, but nothing's going to come from that until the boys are at Samwell.
> 
> Just wanted to make that clear for anyone wondering.

Jack wakes up slowly, body heavy and mind foggy and slow. The room is bright, early morning sunlight glaring off white walls. There’s some kind of tube in his nose that feels really weird. He tries to sit up but doesn’t get more than an inch before the muscles in his arms and core give out. The simple exertions burns much more than it should.

He debates whether or not it’s worth the exhaustion to try and find some kind of call button or just lie back and wait when a nurse bustles in and screams at the sight of him awake.

The next hour is a flurry of nurses, doctors, and tests accompanied but bemused but mostly unconcerned muttering and the phrase “miraculous recovery.” His parents arrive shortly afterward. Mom looks three seconds from flinging herself onto him, which normally wouldn’t be much of a problem, but she seems to realize he’s not in the condition for rough handling at the moment. Or anytime in the next year while Jack does PT and an abridged rehab program.

She clasps his hand, brushing hair off his forehead as she whispers, “Morning, sweetheart.”

“Morning,” Jack croaks, wincing at how rough his voice is.

He knows it’s been five months since he last talked, but it doesn’t seem that long ago. It’s weird how he can accept that it’s been five months since the draft and his overdose, but he’s having a bit of a hard time wrapping his head around the fact he’s alive. The doctors aren’t sure what to make of it since it’s usually the other way around for most patients.

Papa smiles at him shakily, asking, “How’re you feeling?”

Jack automatically goes to shrug but his shoulders doesn’t do more than twitch. That’s going to get very annoying, very quickly. “Doctors say it’ll be a year before I get back on the ice again. Closer to eighteen months until I can play again.”

“Jack,” Papa says then hesitates. “Maybe, maybe hockey isn’t the best thing for you. I’m proud of how hard you worked, how far you got, how well you play, but I can’t pretend hockey is worth losing you over, Jack. You’re more important than a trophy or a spot on a hockey team.”

Jack has no idea what to say that. Hockey has been the center of his life since before he can remember, since Papa held over the Stanley cup and Jack shitted in it. The idea that Papa would suggest he quit hockey just doesn’t seem real. But then again, Papa probably never thought he would be here, standing at Jack’s bedside after he wakes up from a coma after an overdose. Jack tries not to think about that too hard, lest he have an anxiety attack. He’s probably overdue for one at this point.

Jack takes a breath and says, “I like hockey. I-I want to play.”

Papa huffs, laying his hand on Jack’s head. “Okay, kiddo. We’ll talk more after you recover. When are we springing you?”

“They want to keep me a few weeks to make sure there aren’t any complications,” Jack tells them. “After that, I think I should do rehab. Somewhere…away from everything.”

“Whatever you need to feel better, sweetie,” Mom assures, squeezing his hand.

Jack yawned, grumbling, “I don’t know why I’m so tired. I just woke up.”

His parents laugh. Papa says, “You’re healing. Healing means sleep. We’ll come back later. I’ll bring your mp3 player with all your audio books.”

“ _Merci,_ Papa,” Jack murmurs, eyes fluttering shut and drifting off as his parents quietly leave.

He opens his eyes to find himself standing in an unfamiliar room. There are (non-hockey) skates just to his left at the foot of the bed along with a vaguely familiar messenger bag, posters of figure skaters on the wall, and some trophies on the bookcase. A stuffed rabbit sits at the head of the bed next to the pillow, and there are a handful of stones and crystals sitting beside a little clay bowl on the corner of the desk under the window. Through the window, Jack can look down at the street. There’s no snow but the wind blows a few scattered leaves across the empty pavement.

Jack stubs his toe on the corner of the desk legs and bites his tongue to keep from swearing out loud. His toe hurts so Jack is pretty sure this isn’t a dream, meaning he somehow went from laying in a hospital bed barely able to move to some house where Jack magically has full use of all his limbs.

He has no idea what’s going on right now.

He’s reassured that he’s able to move though. That’s something.

A muffled laugh drifts in from somewhere else in the house, followed by a soft clatter. Jack hesitates for a moment before opening the door and peeking out. There is a door to his right that looks like a bathroom and a set of stairs on the left a couple of meters in front of him leading down. The hall continues past the stairs to a just barely ajar door that is probably another bedroom.

Jack quietly pads out of the room, closing the door silently behind him. He’s not wearing anything on his feet but the carpeting on the stairs mutes the soft thuds as he hurries down to the ground floor. From the bottom of the stairs, Jack can see the front door and a small cluster of shoes beside it. He thinks the men’s shoes would fit, though they would probably be a size too big.

Between the end of the stairs and the front door is a fairly wide opening. Jack guesses it's to the kitchen from the sounds of a mixer. An occupied kitchen from the low hum of chatter. Jack crouches down with his back pressed against the wall and creeps closer to the opening, wishing he had a mirror or something so he could see around the corner without exposing his head to the enemy.

Jack should probably stop reading so many historical spy thrillers if he is starting to think of people as “the enemy.”

Even if they are potential kidnappers.

Jack peeks around the corner into the kitchen. A blonde woman stands over the sink, apparently washing dishes. On the counters just to the right and up of Jack’s head, a blonde boy—probably the woman’s son—rolls out a piece of dough. Jack must make some kind of sound because the boy looks down.

Jack has a moment to think he looks vaguely familiar before the boy rears back with a shouted, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

Jack freezes in place. Should he make a run for it?

“You alright, Dicky?” the woman asks, turning around from the sink.

The boy stares at Jack as he answers, “Fine, Mama. Just caught my toe on the edge of a cabinet. Broke the skin and tore a dang hole in my sock.”

The woman shakes her head, smiling as she turns back to the sink. “Only you, Dicky. Go on up and put a band aid on it before you change your socks.”

“Yes, Mama,” Dick agrees quickly, wiping his hands on his apron before shucking it. He marches towards Jack. Jack scrambles back but the boy gets a hand in the collar of his shirt and tugs Jack towards the stairs with a hissed, “Follow me.”

Jack could probably shake Dick loose without much effort, but maybe he’ll be able to explain to Jack what the hell is going on and why he looks familiar.

At the top of the stairs, Dick pushes Jack towards the bedroom Jack had found himself in. Dick closes the door behind them and stares at Jack for a long moment before hissing, “What are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you that,” Jack snipes back, folding his arms over his chest. “I don’t even know where I am.”

Dick squints at him suspiciously. “You’re in Lawrenceville, Georgia. We covered this last night. Or well, this morning technically, depending on whether you classify morning as after midnight.”

“Lawrenceville, Georgia,” Jack repeats, frowning. That sounds familiar. But he was in a coma last night and early this morning, so he couldn’t have met, let alone talked to, Dick last night.

Dick asks, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was talking to my parents, but I was tired so they left. My dad said he’d bring my audio books.” Jack trails off into silence as he watches confusion and not a small amount of fear cloud Dick’s face. But the more he thinks on it, focuses on how familiar Dick seems, the memories come floating back. He remembers coming to in a cemetery standing in some kind of star with a circle around it. He remembers feeling lighter than he had in years after talking to someone who had no idea who he is.

He remembers thinking he was _dead_.

Turns out he isn’t. Awkward.

“So, I’m not dead?” Jack offers into the silence, hoping to reassure Dick a bit. Then he thinks about the fact that he's in some kind of makeshift body a few hundred kilometers from his real body. “Or well, I wasn’t before anyway. I have no idea if I am now. I’d be kind of upset if I woke up from a coma just to die less than two hours later.”

Dick stares at him blankly before shaking his head. “No, that—that makes no sense. The spell, you—you had to have been dead for the spell to work.” He brushes past Jack to get to the desk, pulling open the right bottom drawer. He shifts through the papers and books crammed into the drawer before pulling an old, raggedy book out with a triumphant noise.

Jack peers over his shoulder as Dick flips the ratty cover open. He turns to the index and runs his finger down the table of contents. Jack can’t read a word of it but he thinks it might be Latin. It uses the Latin alphabet anyhow.

Dick’s finger stops just under _Accersere Animi_ and he drags it across the page to find the page number. He thumbs up the corners of the pages until he finds the one he wants and then cracks the book open. Despite being titled in Latin, the passage is written in English. The handwriting might as well be chicken scratch, but Jack can recognize a few words.

A knock on the door makes them both jump. Dick shoves the book at Jack and Jack has enough time to jam a finger between the pages before the book shuts. Dick pushes Jack under the desk.

“I’m not going to fit,” Jack hisses as Dick tries to kick his legs under the desk.

Dick snaps, “Make yourself fit,” before dragging his chair in front of the desk and sitting down. He strips off one sock and calls, “Come in!”

Jack holds his breath, knees around his ears and half a centimeter from scraping the bottom of the desk and a dust-filled book maybe ten centimeters under his nose. He does not see this ending well.

Dick’s mom opens the door and sticks her head in. “You were taking an awfully long time so I thought I’d check on you.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Dick says, pulling on the sock. “It just took me a while to find a matching pair of socks.”

Dick’s mom shakes her head. “If you didn’t just throw them in your drawer all willy nilly then it wouldn’t be a problem. Were you going to finish that pie anytime soon or should I stick the crust in the fridge?”

“Ah, yeah, I’ll do that now.” Dick pauses and asks, “Going out?”

Dick’s mom hums. “We need another few pumpkins for pumpkin bread and then some to can for Thanksgiving and there’s a sale today.”

“Okay, have fun. Don’t forget we have baking club tonight.”

“I know, honey. Did you need anything while I’m out?”

Dick shakes his head. “Not that I can think of.”

Dick’s mom leaves and Jack has just started to inch his legs out when Dick ducks under the chair and asks, “Can you stay there for like fifteen minutes while I go finish my pie?”

“It’s not exactly comfortable down here, Dick.”

Dick rolls his eyes. “The other options are under the bed or in the closet.”

“I’ll take the closet,” Jack says, pushing out from under the desk, book cradled to his chest. He’s got some experience hiding in closets anyway.

Dick shrugs, muttering, “Whatever,” before heading downstairs. To finish baking a pie, which is apparently more important than finding out what the hell is going, or at least telling Jack enough so that he can figure out what's going on himself.

But no, pie takes precedence.

“Nice priorities,” Jack grumbles as he opens the closet and nestles down in half that isn’t figuring skating costumes. There is way too much glitter and sequins on that side of the closet.

)

Eric isn’t usually one to rush a pie, preferring to take his time and really let magic soak in to give it that extra boost of flavor. But Eric has a maybe-half-zombie-person up in his room and a father who is due to wake up in an hour but could also snap awake at any moment, so he finishes rolling out the crust as fast as he dares and hurriedly arranges it over the pie pan, muttering “ _Cogitata_ _felix_ ” under his breath all the while and scoring a tiny sigil on the bottom. He sticks the crust in the fridge and starts on the apples. Coring apples takes forever until Eric belatedly remembers the apple corer Mama got for her birthday. He peels and slices the apples before tossing them with the sugar-spice mix. Eric scrapes the filing out of the bowl and hurriedly lies down the strips for the lattice, murmuring “ _Pacem et laetitia_.” He puts the pie in the oven and he sets the timer on his watch for the first time since he’s gotten it.

Eric hasn’t been in danger of forgetting a pie since he was six years old. But again, maybe-half-zombie-person in his room.

He really hopes he doesn’t have to bring this up at baking club.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Eric dashes to his room. The door’s barely closed when Jack cracks open the closet door. If the situation was different, Eric would be extremely amused at Jack picking the corner of the closet farthest from Eric’s figure skating costumes.

He has no idea what it is with most boys and sequins, but the unwarranted belligerence is hilarious.

Holding out his hand, Eric requests, “Book.”

Jack carefully opens it to the page about summoning spirits—well, souls technically, but that was semantics—and hands it over.

Eric steps back far enough for Jack to come out of the closet, focusing on the passage.

_Summoning spirits can be a dangerous exercise so make sure to use a proper circle as well as some kind of protection elements, whether it be a gemstone, incense, or a plant clipping. For a complete list of gemstones, incense, and plants and their associated characteristics, see Appendices B, C, and D respectively. Summoning dark spirits, the spirits of violent persons, or the spirits of the profoundly bitter is not recommended._

Eric skims down a few lines.

_The first step of actual summoning is setting up the pentagram, center point facing north and encircled. Next is the candles, which should be arranged according to your tradition, though it should be noted that the best results seem to occur when candles are in the British Witch Tradition arrangement._

He taps the line, wondering if that might’ve contributed to the current weirdness. Probably not the only, or even the main, perpetrator, but it is something to keep in mind.

_The following steps can be performed in any order, except for the candle light and incantations which should be performed at the end of the ritual to complete the spell. Gemstones, crystals, and plants should be placed near the north facing Earth candle. Incense, feathers (see Appendix F for associated characteristics and page 45 for instructions on purification), and bells should be arranged around the east facing Wind candle outside of the pentagram. Near the southern Fire candle, place any oils and a boline if cutting any components. Saltwater—preferably bathed in light of a full moon—should be placed in a bowl or chalice next to the west facing Water candle. Once your pentagram is set up, light the candles, starting with the Fire candle and moving clockwise._

_The incantations, occasionally with wandwork and _additional_ spell components, distinguishes one sort of summoning from another. This book does not offer a complete list of spirit summoning incantations are there are numerous variations between traditions, covens, and clans of witches. This book also does not offer any incantations meant to summon dark spirits._

Eric skips the sections about summoning the spirits of blood-relatives, friends, lovers, non-blood-related family members, pets, and possibility threads.

_INCANTATIONS FOR SUMMONING SPIRITS OF STRANGERS AND CALLING LOST SPIRITS_

_Summoning spirits of strangers and calling lost spirits are not recommended for beginning witches, partially because of the sheer power needed to interact with a spirit who was not connected to you in some way during life but mostly because summoning or calling unfamiliar spirits can lead to drawing the attention and presence of dark spirits, vengeful spirits, and or violent spirits. If attempting this sort of summoning, multiple protection elements should be added to your pentagram and a strong ward against negative energies should be set._

Eric hadn’t set anything but an alarm ward in case someone tried to enter the cemetery, but he’d also summoned Jack who is a bit grouchy and built like a linebacker but hasn’t displayed any violent tendencies and seems nice enough except for the fact he’s supposed to be dead.

_For summoning the spirits of strangers—which is assumed to be for a worthy cause such as assisting loved ones in communicating last goodbyes, relieving regrets of the dead, solving crimes, etc.—use the first incantation below. For a more general call meant to politely summon lost spirits to unburden them and see them on to the next plane, use the second incantation below._

Eric heads to the second incantation, mouthing it as he reads. It’s the same incantation he used last night so that can’t be the perpetrator. He glances down at the description of additional components for calling lost spirits.

_Additional Components:_

_A purified earthen vessel to house the spirit (Lasts up to 12 hours)  
(A clay doll with gemstone eyes wrapped in either fabric or twine is suggested. Choose gemstones carefully.)_

_A wand, pointed at the vessel to direct the spirit_

More things Eric had done correctly and are highly unlikely to be responsible for his current situation. Before he closes the book, a bolded line near the bottom of the page draws his notice.

**_ATTENTION: Any blood introduced during the ritual will negate the spell._ **

That would’ve been reassuring if Eric hadn’t managed to summon a spirit, the spirit of _a living person_ at that, after accidentally adding some of his blood to the pentagram.

He’s pretty sure this means he has to tell Mama and that Jack’s going to tag along to the baking club meeting. Eric turns to tell Jack the bad news, but the only thing there is the empty clay doll.

That’s probably a somewhat ominous sign, but it also means Eric could probably wait to see if Jack turns up again tomorrow before telling Mama.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the last update for at least a few weeks since I have a paper due early next week that I've been procrastinating on like whoa, then exams and lab practicals, then Thanksgiving(s), and then finals and the final project from hell. If I die, I'll try to post updates from the afterlife, but I'm not sure how good the wifi in Hell is.

Eric has never guilt-baked before, but by the time Coach gets up, there are at least six dozen cookies packed neatly in gifts bags, four pies packed away in boxes, three pies cooling, another in the oven, and a backlog of crusts and fillings in the fridge. Admittedly, he may’ve used a couple spells to carefully accelerate the actual baking by a bit, but there were still enough baked goods to tell that Eric had been in the kitchen with a singular focus pretty much all morning. Also, Eric has last year’s Thanksgiving and Christmas editions of _Southern Living_ open on the counter next to Mama’s recipe rolodex.

Coach takes in the overabundance of baked goods without so much as a blink and asks gruffly, “Breakfast?”

Eric pulls open the fridge and pokes behind pie fixings until he finds a container of breakfast casserole. He pops the top off, covers it with plastic wrap, and sticks it in the microwave for two minutes. When the microwave dings, Eric grabs a potholder and ferries the hot dish from to the table, leaving the potholder under it so it won’t scorch the table.

Coach pats Eric’s head as he lumbers over to sit down at the table, murmuring, “Thanks, Junior.”

“No problem, Coach,” Eric replies, starting the coffeemaker before diving back into the _Southern Living_ issues.

He has yet to find a problem that couldn’t be drowned in enough baking, and he isn’t about to find one now.

)

After his nap, Jack finds out Papa had come back not long after they left to drop off Jack’s mp3 player. He gets to eat an oddly textured liquid breakfast before being shuffled around the hospital in a wheelchair he can’t get into on his own, let alone push. First stop is the office of a psychiatrist who speaks to him softly and sweetly, like he’s still in the peewee leagues and hadn’t lost most of his baby teeth on the ice. Yes, he overdosed because his anxiety spiked due to the draft and he’d been drinking like an idiot, but he also plays hockey. He’s not some delicate flower.

Even if his body begs to differ right now.

Honestly, Jack thinks that’s the worst of it. He used to have complete control over his body, could move it any way he wanted. Now he can’t even wipe his own ass or feed himself. It’s humiliating, and all he wants is to spend a couple hours on the ice while shooting pucks at a goal.

He wonders if he can go through hockey withdrawal. He missed the withdrawal symptoms during the coma, but the psychiatrist assures him it’s not a pleasant experience.

What seems like an eternity later of insisting that the overdose had been accidental, and a stupid accident at that, a nurse wheels Jack down to the PT rooms. There are several patients in varying stages of therapy exercising with therapists. The nurse pushes Jack into the room, but sticks to the side as a physical therapists comes over to reassess how much Jack’s muscles atrophied during the coma and to discuss a PT plan to get him back to working form—apparently not as badly as expected, so many a month or two shaved off his prognosis, but that was still a long time before Jack can get back to his training regimen, set foot on the ice again.

“Since you’ve been up and around, even if you’re in the chair, we’ll wait to start you on PT until tomorrow,” the therapist says, nodding at the nurse. “Be sure to rest up.”

The nurse takes Jack back to his room and lifts him into bed.

Jack hates having to ask for help, hates being a burden, but he makes his tone civil when he asks the nurse, “Could I listen to some audio books?” He manages to half-nod in the direction of the mp3 player with earbuds wrapped around it on the table beside his bed.

Jack ignores the nurse’s sympathetic smile and swallows down how uncomfortable it is to have a stranger causally intruding on his personal space even if had, in a roundabout way, asked for it.

He lets the world wash away in a novel about the Rebellion of 1837. The narration’s a little dry in places, but the cadence is soothing and history is always interesting.

)

Eric is in the middle of taking a pie out of the oven when Mama gets back with a bounty of pumpkins. She stops in the doorway, four large pumpkins improbably balanced in her arms as she stares at the baked goods on the counters. They’ve multiplied since Coach finished breakfast and retreated to the den to watch football.

Mama stacks the pumpkins on a corner of the counter and puts her hands on her hips as she stares sternly at Eric. “Eric Richard Bittle, what in heaven’s name have you done this time?”

Eric freezes with the pie just above the cooling rack. “Nothing?” he offers weakly, not quite meeting her eyes.

“ _Dicky_.”

Eric sets the pie down and sticks his oven-mitt-covered hands in the front pocket of his apron, shoulders hunching up level to his jaw. “I…may have gotten into your books again,” he admits.

She sighs, hands falling from her hips. “Those books are too old for you, Dicky. I’ve told you before, when you’re old enough—”

“When, Mama?” Eric demands, turning to get the fixings for the next pie out of the fridge. “When am I going to be old enough to learn more than doodling good wishes on pies or how to chat through a mirror? Eighteen? Twenty? Never? Because you’ve been saying when I’m older for two years now, and I haven’t learned anything new.”

Mama frowns, insisting, “That’s not true.”

“The alarm ward was the last thing you taught me how to do, which I probably should’ve learned to do before eleven. Krissy McCormick knows how to set an alarm ward and she’s seven, Mama,” Eric snaps, setting a pie tin with a crust on the counter and grabbing the bowl of huckleberry filling. “The youngest member of the baking club even.”

He scraps the filling into the crust, murmuring under his breath, “ _Relaxatio et causum_.” Eric sets the bowl aside and sighs. “I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

He doesn’t bother trying to justify it, telling her about how most of the baking club treats him like a mascot—cute, but without much substance, even less to contribute. He doesn’t say that magic and baking and figure skating is all he has, all he can use to prove that there’s more to him than a failure as Coach’s son, as the boy everyone thinks he should be.

That Eric is lost in his own head more and more, and scared of his own thoughts sometimes, and he needs more distractions so he doesn’t think too hard about it.

He picks up the pie and puts it in the oven before turning to face Mama. She has her hip leaned against the counter and a weary, contemplative look on her face.

“I remember your first pie,” she says, lips quirking up at the corners with fond nostalgia. “Dear lord, half the church must’ve been giggling their heads off after taking a bite. Franny Tubman was so angry I thought she was going to banish us from the county.”

Eric shrugs. “I don’t remember.”

“You were four, maybe five,” Mama says fondly. “Cute as a button and more trouble than a pack of gremlins. I remember teaching you the incantation for the mirrors, and first call you made was to Moo Maw. Nearly gave her a heart attack.”

“I vaguely remember that,” Eric admitted, grinning despite himself. “Wasn’t she entertaining a church group?”

“She was. Took nearly ten minutes to get you to stop calling back whenever she banished you.” Mama’s smile dims and she says, “You were always good at it. Took to the ice and baking and magic like a duck to water. We don’t worry too much about the baking and we leave skating to your coaches, but we worry about the magic. Learning too much magic too fast doesn’t lead to good things, historically speaking. I didn’t want that for you, and I guess in trying to make sure you took your time, I might have forced you to go too slow.”

Eric perks up, and Mama laughs, wagging her finger at him and informing him, “That doesn’t mean I’m just going to let you go hog wild with my books, Dicky. And no unsupervised spellcasting, is that clear, young man?”

“I can still enchant the pies though, right?”

Mama rolls her eyes. “Yes, Dicky, you can still enchant the pies as long as it’s the enchantments we’ve already been using.”

Eric hugged her, murmuring, “Thank you, Mama.”

“Yeah, well, it seems like I haven’t been as good as a mom as I thought I was,” she replies, hugging him back tightly. “I hope I can do a bit better from now on.”

)

Jack surfaces from the past when someone taps on his hand. His eyes snap open and his hands twitch. Jack never thought he’d miss full-bodied flinches.

Papa stands beside his bed, hand stretched towards Jack’s head and a questioning eyebrow raised. Jack twitches his head down and Papa pauses the audio book before taking out Jack’s earbuds.

“Good nap?” he asks, sitting in the visitor chair.

Jack mumbles, “Yeah,” even though he’s been vaguely irritated since he’d woken up again.

Papa nods and looks at his hands as he says, “Your mom’s already started researching rehab centers. She’ll probably bring in a list as tall as she is for you to choose from closer to your release date.”

“Tell her I appreciate the effort.” They lapse into silence for a long moment before Jack says, “I guess Kent got drafted by the Aces, huh.”

“Jack—”

Jack rolls his eyes and ignores the vague soreness that induces. “I’m not going to break apart just from hearing the words, Papa. And I-I’d like to know how he’s been doing.”

Papa sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah, the Aces snatched him up as the number one pick. He caught the first plane out to Las Vegas. Press caught him for an interview about your—” he waves his hand vaguely and Jack assumes he means the overdose—“but all he said was he had enjoyed playing with you, that you were a great player, and a lot of other words meaning ‘No comment.’” Papa pauses, adding gently, “He hasn’t called or emailed since he left. Didn’t leave a forwarding address either.”

“Oh.”

Jack has always known he and Kent had an expiration date, that as the two best players in the QMJHL they wouldn’t start their NHL careers on the same team. He just thought they’d have a proper goodbye, that even if one of them went to Vegas and the other headed for Tampa Bay they’d still be friends at least.

He guesses that’s kind of naïve.

Bitterly, Jack wonders if Kent bothered to listen to the voicemail he’d left just before the overdose. He’s not sure if it would be better or worse if Kent had and decided to cut Jack out anyway.

He wonders if Kent kept the Habs cap Jack bought him for his birthday. If Kent still has Jack’s Penguins shirt in the back of his dresser like Jack has Kent’s New York Yankees sweatshirt.

Jack grits out, “Could you select one of the American Civil War novels and put my earbuds in please, Papa?”

Papa whispers, “It’s not your fault,” as he gently pressed the earbuds into Jack’s ears and starts the audio book.

Jack pretends not to hear him because it _is_ his fault. Kent might’ve left, but Jack is the one stupid enough to think he’d get to hold on to someone who isn’t his, who only wasted time on him since there was no one else.

He drowns out the noise in his head and the ache in his chest with steady narrations.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Nautilicious, for the beta!

After helping Mama carve up the pumpkins, make pumpkin bread, and can the leftover pumpkin for Thanksgiving, Eric creeps up to his room. He’s incredibly relieved to find it empty, clay doll still safely tucked behind Señor Bun. He grabs his backpack, pulling out a couple notebooks and textbooks at random and spreading them out on his desk before he takes Mama’s fifth edition copy of _Principle Magic Adapted from the Roman Tradition_ out of his desk drawer. He flips to the chapter about spirit summoning and wedges the corners under his school stuff.

As much as his mother is willing to forgive him for getting into her books, Eric doesn’t want to stretch her patience further until he has a better idea of why things went weird with the spell. He wants to be able to do more than just drop a problem into her lap without any way to help.

Eric scours the chapter on calling lost spirits again, but it still isn’t helpful. He pauses over the section about calling the spirits of possibility threads, stares at the curling script of the subheader for a long wistful moment, before he flips back to the index to see if he can’t find something that sounds like it might be vaguely related in another chapter.

He pours over the book for a few hours before giving up. Maybe he’ll think of something during baking club later.

Pulling out his homework, Eric puts any thoughts of magic and unintended mayhem out of his mind for a couple hours.

)

The baking club meets every Saturday evening, expect for Christian holidays and New Year’s Day, in the basement of an old Methodist church on the outskirts of Lawrenceville. On one side is a nursery and a bookstore on the other where Mama’s book club is held every third Wednesday of the month, both owned by baking club members.

Mama sees him looking at the bookstore and sighs, exasperated but still mostly fond. “I suppose you’re old enough to come with me if you want. But we’ll discuss when you get to participate, alright? We don’t want you kids to get yourselves in trouble by dabbling where you shouldn’t.”

Eric is thankful Mama’s turned the other way as she climbs out of the car. He’s not sure what his face looks like right this moment and isn’t about to pull down the mirror in the visor to check, but it’s probably guilty-looking and suspicious. He tries to arrange his expression into something a little less likely to get him found out, and gets out of the car. He grabs the pie and the bags of cookies they brought.

They go in through the foyer, and there is a pair of little bronze and antimony bells tied around the knob of the door to the stairs. Mama taps the bells gently and lets them ring quietly for a moment before she pulls open the door. Eric goes down after her and the bells ring as the door closes behind him.

The basement spans the entire length of the church so there’s more than enough space for Eric, Mama, the sixteen other baking club members, the table of food, and several chests and large locking storage cabinets filled with various items for communal use. Most of the floor is carpeted but there is a large bare patch on the far side where a few members have set up small fires or camp stoves under cauldrons of various sizes near the old fireplace and the vents that hooked up to the chimney. The corner of the carpet closest to the fireplace is peeling up from the floor again, probably from the most recent refreshing of the teleport circle sigils.

Mrs. Tubman holds court at the head of the food table and Eric makes a beeline for the opposite end while Mama goes to pay their respects to the host. He sets down the box of cookie bags and puts out the pie, cutting it into neat even slices. At least a half dozen members drifts over as soon as they see Eric, filling their plates while making polite small talk before drifting away again.

Krissy McCormick tries to take two slices of pie. As Eric sees her going for a second piece, he pulls the pie tin away and hovers his hands over it protectively as he scolds, “You know the rules, Krissy. No seconds until everyone who wants some gets some.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” She glares at him and probably would be crossing her arms if she wasn’t holding a slice of pie. “You’re just a stupid boy who can’t even play football. You’re not even that good with magic. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Rules are rules,” Eric says with a shrug. He’s not about to let a little viper like Krissy get under his skin, lest of all over some of his pie. And, really, if he wasn’t any good at magic, not half as many people would devour his enchanted pies. Well, they probably would, because his pies are delicious and Moo Maw’s recipes have won more contests than anyone else’s in the county, but they wouldn’t be quite so happy or relaxed after eating. As much as the baking club likes to laugh over the fact that Eric’s only ever enchanted pies, no one has had one word of complaint in a long while.

Mrs. McCormick notices the slight commotion from the head of the table and meanders over, sliding a hand across Krissy’s back until it curled around her shoulder. “Something wrong, Eric?”

“No, ma’am, Mrs. McCormick,” Eric replies. “Just making sure every has firsts before anyone gets seconds.”

Mrs. McCormick doesn’t even look around before she replies, “Well, it seems to me that everyone who wanted firsts got them.”

Eric imagines arguing for a moment, but then he sees Mrs. Tubman looking over and slowly slides the pie back over. Krissy’s face is incredibly smug as she helps herself to another giant slice and some the filling left on the bottom. She sticks her tongue out behind Mrs. McCormick’s back as they walk away.

Baking and magic: awesome. Baking club: not so much.

There’s safety in numbers, he knows, especially since Mrs. Tubman’s the Reverend’s wife and Mrs. McCormick’s head of the PTA, but Eric dislikes it when everyone talks over and around him. Never really to him unless it’s to tell him to be quiet. Like baking, magic in Lawrenceville is a woman’s thing as far as anyone’s concerned. Only most of the men don’t know and most of the women accept his baking far more than his magic.

Especially since magic is an outlet for most of the baking club, something to make them feel confident and powerful that the men can’t wrestle the control of and aren’t really interested in, that they actively dissuade their sons from pursuing. Eric’s honestly not interested in trying to control anything or anybody and definitely does not want to head up the baking club. He has enough problems of his own right now. He can’t imagine how difficult it would be to manage his own problems and then also baking club problems.

It’s also kind of awkward how half the moms eye him as if he kills kittens in his spare time and the other half like he might be breeding stock. Mama’s line is full of powerful witches even if the Bittle side might be as non-magical as it gets, so good breeding stock isn’t exactly an unfair comparison.

It just really creeps Eric out because most of the girls are only a little older than Eric. Which is way too young to be even thinking about babies. Even if it’s the South and there’s always at least three couples getting married right after high school graduation.

Eric’s thirteen. He’s not ready to be responsible of anything more than maybe a fish, and a hearty one at that.

Eric leaves the food table to check out what’s brewing in the cauldrons on the other side of the room. Mrs. Tracy smiles at from where she’s stirring a cauldron filled with some thin blue concoction that smells like azaleas, olives, and poppies.

“Anti-anxiety potion,” Mrs. Tracy tells him. “My eldest’s got SATs next month and is just about at his wit’s end. Barely sleeping anymore and when he’s not got his nose buried in one of them prep books, he’s avoiding them as much as he can. The agate and amethyst under his pillow aren’t helping much so thought I’d give it a try.”

She leans down a little, whispering and pointing a few cauldrons over. “Sarah Landon’s trying to make somethin’ to do with thread sight, so you best steer clear if you see her looking around. I hear she’s wantin’ to use someone tonight as a guinea pig and, well, everyone knows you and your mama aren’t some of Franny’s favorites.”

Eric’s tried untested potions before. None of them have left lasting marks, but it hasn’t happened recently since Mama had raised quite a bit of hell because Eric isn’t a position to say no most times. He’s not even technically a member of the baking club and only allowed in meeting because Mrs. Tubman wants to keep Mama in the baking club for the prestige. But that’s not going to last much longer with Mama making noises about moving to Madison once the high school football coach there retires.

If Eric wants to keep attending meetings and stay in the relative safety of the baking club, he needs to stay on Mrs. Tubman’s good side. Which means if someone makes a potion, Eric’s always volunteered and saying no risks them either finding another tester who’s farther in Mrs. Tubman’s good graces or the potion-maker going straight to Mrs. Tubman to complain there’s no way to test their potion and what might that mean for the baking club.

“Thanks for the warning, Mrs. Tracy,” Eric says, trying to spot Mama in the room. “I’ll make sure to let Mama know too.”

Eric doesn’t get more than two steps away from the cauldrons before there’s a hand on his shoulder, sharp nails digging in and holding him in place. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep shaky breath before turning his head and greeting warily, “Hiya, Mrs. Landon. How’re you?”

“Just peachy, Dicky,” she says brightly, steering him back towards the cauldrons. Mrs. Tracy winces and gives him a sympathetic look as they pass her. Mrs. Landon continues, “Now, I had this wonderful idea for a potion, and I think you’re just the one to try it out. Don’t worry, no poisonous ingredients this time!”

“Lucky me,” Eric drawls dully as he stares at Mrs. Landon’s thick, rolling cauldron of black goo. He holds his breath and tries not to inhale any of the smell. He can’t imagine it’s pleasant.

While Mrs. Landon ladles some the goo into a plastic cup, Eric searches the room for Mama. He finds her in the group clustered around Mrs. Tubman, her posture bored and her face turned away. Yelling’s not going to do anything but embarrass himself and Mama, so Eric tries shouting at her in his head.

He’s completely unsurprised it doesn’t work.

Mrs. Landon pushes the cup into his hand with a cheerful, “Drink up, kiddo!”

Eric delays the inevitable by sniffing at the goo. It doesn’t smell as bad as it looks, which is a small mercy, but the scents of roses, whitecedar, almond, and candle larkspur are overwhelming. He tries not to think about what it’s going to taste like.

With a half-hearted prayer to whatever deity is listening that he lives through the experience, Eric starts to drink. The goo is thick on his tongue and in his throat, like he’s trying to swallow molasses or a glob of peanut butter. The texture is enough to make him gag, and the taste of gym socks and those terrible sawdust protein bars doesn’t help. He squeezes his eyes and chokes it all down. He hands Mrs. Landon back the cup and refrains from trying to scrape the leftover taste off his tongue with his sleeve. For a moment his stomach rolls violently and Eric has a flash of vomiting all over Mrs. Landon and her cauldron of nasty-ass goo for a glorious moment. But the nausea passes harmlessly.

Eric’s only a little disappointed.

“C’mon, Eric, open your eyes. Let’s see whether this batch worked or if I’m back to the drawing board.”

Eric opens his eyes, but there’s nothing new, so hr starts to say, “I don’t—” but then he looks down.

There are dozens of threads coming out of his shirt, like they’re tied to the middle of his chest. They fan out in front of him in several directions, in a variety of sizes. The biggest, probably about the weight of a thin rope, is shades of dark lavender and violet and tangled around his right hand before it shoots off towards the northeast. A pair of nearly indistinguishable thick blue strings are under it, each going farther east than the lavender thread but not by more than a few degrees. Just slightly to the left of the pair of blue strings is a thinner blue string crossing over a blue, just faintly purple, thread heading more eastward. There’s some pointing northwest, mostly blue but one or two faintly pink ones. One thick teal string points strongly west. It might be a trick of the light, but Eric thinks there’s a red thread, thin as spider silk, that’s heading west and just a little north that also seems to be going up where most of the others are tilted down.

Without really thinking about it, with only the first inklings of dim hope and leaden dread, Eric tugs on the lavender thread wrapped around his hand.

One moment the floor under his feet is carpet and the next it is some white speckled linoleum with what looks like the edge of a hospital bed just inside his field of vision. The lavender thread wrapped around his right hand is pointing to the bed. Eric glances up and amends, _connected_ to the _guy_ lying in the bed.

Eric takes a deep breath and tries not to freak out. Then he recognizes that it’s _Jack_ lying in the bed, pale with lines of pain around his closed eyes and grim mouth and shiny tracks at the corners of his eyes.

He takes another deep breath, holds it, and lets it out slowly. He wonders if he should get the sexuality freakout out of the way now, or wait until he gets back to the church where Mama’ll kill him dead and he won’t actually have to think about it ever again.

Because, really, purple possibilities threads, especially as thick and dark purple as the one Eric’s got, are just as damning as red ones.

Add in how Eric’s been havin’ _thoughts_ about some of the football boys and none at all about all the cheerleaders his classmates are fawning over—well. A jury would be hard pressed not to convict on evidence like that.

Eric slowly lowers himself to the ground, breathing in and out slowly like his third grade skating coach had taught him when Eric had been ready to throw up or faint right before his first skate at nationals.

It doesn’t have to mean anything, Eric tells himself. He can just ignore it. Grow up, go to college, get a job, and just…be alone for the rest of his life.

He can’t tell his parents. He’s already failed them so much already and this—him being _gay_ —well, that’s certainly enough to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Maybe when he gets back to Lawrenceville, he can sneak onto the family computer and search for techniques on how to stop noticing guys. Eric doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to notice girls, but he thinks he could make do with just not noticing anyone. Would definitely help him be less paranoid about whether or not he’s being obvious, whether people could tell he’s had thoughts about boys.

Eric’s not going to be able to think about anything else for days. Except maybe the possibility thread that connect him to Jack.

That definitely opens up a whole ‘nother can of worms Eric’s not looking forward to sifting through. However, it’s also a lead on why the spirit summoning went weird.

Still, he’s just going to tuck that away in a nice little box and forget about until he’s back home and alone.

Eric pushes to his feet and then just sort of stands there. He has no idea how to get home. Absolutely none. He’s not sure he’s even actually here, wherever here is. Probably Montreal, since that’s where Jack was last he knew, and Jack’s right over there, even if he hasn’t noticed Eric yet.

Eric puts his hand against the wall and isn’t surprised when it goes through. So, yeah, spirit of a living person. At least, he hopes he’s still alive.

Either way, Mama’s probably having one hell of a fit back in Lawrenceville.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all are welcome to guess who some of Eric's possibility thread belongs to and what they mean, and I'll be more than to confirm correct guesses.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting this at pretty late, so if there's any mistakes please point them out to me so I can fix them when I'm not on the verge of falling asleep. I'm probably going to regret starting this (I have way too many WIPs already), but the idea demanded to be written and there was a distinct lack in Halloween-related fics in this fandom.
> 
> "Signum" = signal  
> "Tutela" = safeguard
> 
> Meaning behind the things used in Eric's ritual if anyone's interest:
> 
> Candles - four elements
> 
> Amber - Transmutes negative energy into positive.
> 
> Hematite - Grounding. Clarifies thought, improves memory, and calms anxiety.
> 
> Clear Quartz - Attracts, amplifies, and sends energy.
> 
> Rose Quartz - Restores harmony after emotional wounding.
> 
> Turquoise - Highly spiritual yet grounding. Uplifting to unconditional Love. Aligns chakras and opens heart.
> 
> Lavender - Blesses and purifies actions, past and future. Encourages forgiveness.
> 
> Sage - Cleansing, removing harmful or negative energies. Protects against negative energy.


End file.
